Gamels – game elements

Author’s note: I’m attempting to develop a method for game analysis around irreducible game elements (gamels). This and all the other articles are a sort of log of my thought process, and are not definitive truths. Please feel free to react or comment in any way.

I often run out of words to describe what I want to talk about. My approach in these cases is to just make up a new word.

6x4 picture elements

6x4 picture elements

The concept of game elements or objects has been around long enough, but its real definition is still quite vague. There is the uneasy proximity of terms with the OOP objects, which tend to represent or encapsulate game objects but also do a bunch of other stuff. You could also be talking about any thing that’s visible on-screen, or limit them to what the player manipulates. You could also talk about a character’s inventory or… Well, I think you might have guessed the point by now, so I’ll stop.

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Constraint: Time of production

Time has long been thought as a negative constraint to game development. Huge, multi-million dollar productions sometimes last for 3+ years and still manage to feel incomplete at the end, sometimes even requiring a patch to run properly. The general assumption is that more time and more money will forcibly yield a better game. However, this is periodically proved false.

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